


one bullet

by keptin



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Angst and Humor, Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, WWII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 04:03:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18275393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keptin/pseuds/keptin
Summary: “All clear,” he said, doing a headcount. “Everyone present and accounted for?”“Yes, mother,” Falsworth replied in that same unperturbed tone, smoothing dirt off the front of his jacket from where he’d had to throw himself to the ground to avoid a blast. Steve rolled his eyes, but was glad nobody seemed to be hurt as he counted the Howlies.“Wait,” he said slowly after seeing Gabe kneel to radio back to base. He counted again, making sure he hadn’t just missed anyone or that nobody had ducked out while he was counting. “Where’s Bucky?”“Over here!”It was choked, a little. A sound that could either be a laugh or a gasp of pain followed before Bucky called again.“I’m hit!”





	one bullet

**Author's Note:**

> found this in my drafts from literally december of 2016, and i decided i needed to finish it. the end is a little rushed, but i felt like i should just get it done and post it rather than wait another two years until i find it again.  
> kudos to you if you understand the reference!

“They got my hat.”

Dugan had his bowler in one hand, frowning as he poked his finger through one of the holes on either side and wiggled it. The bullet had passed through one side and out the other, leaving a hot burn on his scalp but thankfully nothing more than that. Steve was putting his shield back on his back, looking around to make sure no HYDRA soldiers were going to pop out from behind a tree or anything.

“All clear,” he said, doing a headcount. “Everyone present and accounted for?”

“Yes, mother,” Falsworth replied in that same unperturbed tone, smoothing dirt off the front of his jacket from where he’d had to throw himself to the ground to avoid a blast. Steve rolled his eyes, but was glad nobody seemed to be hurt as he counted the Howlies.

“Wait,” he said slowly after seeing Gabe kneel to radio back to base. He counted again, making sure he hadn’t just missed anyone or that nobody had ducked out while he was counting. “Where’s Bucky?”

The rest of the group looked around. No Sergeant Barnes in the little clearing of kicked-up dirt and tree bark they’d just created. He wasn’t in the trees, either. His stomach sinking, Steve knelt next to the bodies on the ground, making sure they were all HYDRA soldiers; thankfully, he didn’t spot a dark blue wool peacoat on any of them. Then, a voice rang through the trees.

“Over here!”

It was choked, a little. A sound that could either be a laugh or a gasp of pain followed before Bucky called again.

“I’m hit!”

* * *

The mission was supposed to be quick and simple. Go in, sabotage a HYDRA supply route, steal whatever info they can find that looks relevant, and leave. Suffice it to say, simple missions never turn out as simple in practice as in theory.

First, the charges Dernier set didn’t go off as planned; they went off when the trucks were already past, alerting the drivers that something fishy was going on. They stopped their vehicles and got out, looking around for what had caused the explosions. Steve’s breath caught for a split second, but he kept his gaze roaming, constantly re-assessing the situation and looking for escape routes, possible alternate paths, opportunities to just ambush them and get the hell out. This was the opposite of the plan, which was to get the fuck rid of them and grab anything that looked like pertinent information. While the HYDRA soldiers shot each other what one could only imagine had to be confused glances-- they were wearing full helmets with a tinted lens, so he had to speculate-- Steve began to creep out of cover, shield at the ready and poised to throw. And then a bullet caught one of the drivers through the neck without so much as a whistle as it sailed home, taking him down.

The back doors of the second truck burst open and HYDRA soldiers spilled out like a split bag of beans, fanning out to block and surround the Commandos, and a firefight had ensued.

If the sound of Bucky’s voice alone hadn’t spurred Steve to action, hearing him say that he was hit did. He was on his feet, running before he even had his balance, desperate to make it to Bucky before it was too late, to make sure he was okay, to get him the help he needed, to be there with him, just like he’d promised he’d always be, to…

The dirt around Bucky’s legs was dark and his pants were tacky and shiny around his hips. His face was pale, and he was making a horrendous wheezing sound. Steve fell to his knees beside him, his hands on him immediately, pulling at his coat as he scrabbled to find the source of the bleeding.

“You’re gonna be okay, Buck,” he assured him, though his voice cracked right down the middle and his hands shook. All that blood had no business coming from Bucky, his face shouldn’t be that pale, he shouldn’t even be here in the first place. The wheezing sound came again, and Bucky’s hands swatted at Steve’s, but he continued, undeterred. There was no bullet hole or apparent source of all the blood anywhere on Bucky’s torso, and Steve had the horrible thought that the wound was in Bucky’s back, then, the bullet still in him, and the time he’d wasted trying to find it was time less that he had to get Bucky help. “God, Buck, you’re gonna be fine, just hold on for me-”

“I know I’m gonna be fine, you turkey,” Bucky snapped, making the sound again, but it cut off when Steve rolled him over, even though he did it as gently as he could, pulling Bucky’s peacoat off of him, right off his arms. “Holy hell, buy me dinner first, will you?”

“Shut up,” Steve replied, only half-focused on the sound of Bucky’s voice, though he always did like to hear it. There was even more blood on Bucky’s right hip and the left side of his ass, two holes ripped in the fabric in those spots. That was where the blood was coming from, and Steve stared until Bucky reached behind himself to swat Steve’s arm.

“Hey,” he said, and Steve finally realized that that noise he’d been making was as much a laugh as it was a sound of pain-- knowing Bucky, maybe more a laugh. “Guess they really ripped me a new one.”

Steve huffed, but didn’t smack him in the shoulder like he would have ordinarily; first of all, Bucky was injured, and second of all, a gentle nudge from Steve would probably send him clear across the French border. His heart still hammered in his chest, aching from the whiplash of the certainty he had been holding his best friend in his arms as he bled out, that he was watching Bucky’s final minutes on Earth. But here they were, and more importantly, here Bucky was. Steve could have doubled over sobbing from the relief. Instead, he pushed at Bucky’s head, mussing his hair and pressing his face into the dirt.

“Asshole,” he muttered at him, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” Bucky agreed, “five of them.”

Morita came rushing over next, pulling packets of sulfa and a wad of bandages out of his bag before he even reached them. He took a look at the look on Steve’s face, which at this point must’ve looked like something bordering on hysterical, and then down at Bucky.

“Hey, Jim,” said Bucky, waving from his spot on the ground.

“Nice ass, Sarge,” said Morita back at him, raising an eyebrow indifferently and kneeling beside Steve to get a look at the damage. Bucky barked out a laugh, which sounded like a cough from how he was positioned laying on his front.

“Everyone wants a piece of it today,” he replied. “I should start charging an admissions fee.”

“Or pay us compensation for having to see it,” added Dugan as he ambled over. “One bullet, four holes.”

“I’m charging _you_ quadruple.”

With the others finally congregating around Bucky, or probably more precisely around Bucky’s ass, Steve sat back on his haunches, running a hand through his hair and finding that it trembled. He hadn’t gotten the shakes for a long time, not since his Captain America gig had turned into, well, _a real Captain America gig._ That had been during the rescue mission. He talked a big game, tried to look like the hero he was supposed to be while he rode in the plane with Peggy and Howard, but inside, he had been the skinny kid from Brooklyn all over again, rattling around his big new body like a solitary peanut in a can. He’d felt like that again, too small for his own bones, as he’d rushed over to Bucky and held him and thought he was dying, and even now that he knew everything was fine and Morita was fixing things up so they could head back, that feeling still had yet to leave him entirely.

It stuck with him all the way until they were back and Bucky was carried off to get his ass looked at. From there, he tried to act chummy and cheerful with the rest of the Howlies like normal, but without Bucky, there was something absent. The others could tell it, too, but they politely avoided the topic until Bucky came back with stitches and gauze padding each cheek.

“Some mission,” Bucky had remarked later that night, dressed in just his trousers and undershirt as they both tried to get some sleep. A pair of socks hung unrolled over the end of his footlocker, and even though he’d shedded his overshirt and jacket, he hadn’t so much as loosened his boots.

Steve swallowed, nodded. “Some mission,” he agreed. Time passed, a minute, then two, both men staring at the walls of the tent and not at each other. Something lingered in the air like someone waiting for the right moment to jump into a conversation.

“Think I mighta died?” Bucky asked suddenly. He was laying on his front, and like this, his pillow pressed into his face and pulled his mouth into a skewed line, which looked like a sardonic smirk from where Steve was. It might’ve been one, if the question was any indication. Either way, Steve felt his heart shudder at the reminder of what could’ve been.

“Maybe,” he admitted, wanting to get it over with and stop talking about this and go to sleep. It seemed to be the answer Bucky had been looking for, because he nodded to himself and put his head down. In an instant, Steve needed to not end the conversation there. “But I really don’t know. No one can predict that sorta thing, you know, probability and statistics and all of that stuff. You know how it is, you so much as cough and your shot’s off by a mile-”

“Steve,” Bucky said. Steve shut his mouth.

Bucky opened his mouth again, hesitated, and looked off towards the tent flap as if looking for an excuse. Then, he scoffed to himself and turned his head, meeting Steve’s eyes for the first time that night.

“Steve, the one thing you oughtta know about me here is that I’ve been lucky,” he told him. When he spoke, it was usually with the same ease with which he danced; flowing, smooth, unbothered and unselfconscious. It wasn’t like Bucky to speak this deliberately, to choose each word like picking out produce. He went on: “I’ve been luckier than most. I dunno any other guy here who’s got a best friend back home signing up for some kinda military experiment. I dunno any other guy who can jump out of an airplane with no ‘chute and land without turning into putty. The only thing I know is that this is more luck than any other guy, and it’s gotta run out sometime. Getting shot in the ass hurt like holy Jesus, but it’s chump change compared to what it means to be unlucky here.”

He watched Steve for a moment more, and added, “You understand me, Stevie?” and Steve nodded back, throat dry. He understood. He understood, and he didn’t like it one bit, but that wasn’t what Bucky had asked him. It must have shown on his face, because Bucky’s expression softened into something gentler, but still wry.

“You’re gonna be fine, Stevie,” he told him. “I think you’re gonna be just fine.”

* * *

 A month later, when Steve was left clinging to the ragged side of a speeding train, he thought to himself, _If this is what fine means, I’d rather be dead._

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [tumblr](http://tieflingvevo.tumblr.com).


End file.
